LETHAL POLICE RESPONSE AS A CRIME DETERRENT - 57-CITY STUDY SUGGESTS A DECREASE IN CERTAIN CRIMES

Abstract. Since Gary Becker's article on the economics of crime and punishment, economists have explored extensively the possible deterrence effect of standard enforcement variables, not only for their public policy implications but to test the hypothesis that illegitimate behavior is sensitive to measures of risk and reward (loss) as well as social, psychological and cultural forces. Research has been needed on the probability of death to the offender caused by official police action—“lethal response.” To measure the criminal reaction to intercity variations in the rate of civilian killings of police in the line of duty, a cross‐sectional study of 57 cities was undertaken. Variations in non‐homicide violent crime rate were found to be inversely related to variations in the intercity lethal response rate. this suggests the presence of a deterrence effect, a one Sixth of one percent decrease in the rate of non‐homicide violent crime being associated with a one percent increase in the lethal response rate. Copyright © 1991, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved